New YA Novel with Asexual lead- From the Nightly Shore

[Acebdolon]

I wanted to share my book From the Nightly Shore. It's my debut novel, although I've written a couple other currently unpublished books, and I also have a Master of Fine Arts degree in writing popular fiction, so it is a professional level work even though I decided to self-publish and it is an #ownvoices work.

 

I've had lots of positive responses so far, but I was hoping to share it here because the main character, Corbin White, is asexual and I was hoping to see what other asexual readers think of it. I wrote it to be a more main-stream than niche, and the book description doesn't specifically say he is asexual. His asexuality isn't the main plot of the book but it's one of the subplots, and he's a teen still trying to understand what he is and what he wants/doesn't want in a relationship. So it's written more to develop that part of his character more slowly than by saying it outright, although the there are hints about it right from the start.

 

Here is the book description:

 

A page-turning debut, perfect for fans of Andrew Smith, Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series, and even The Twilight Saga. From the Nightly Shore is an intense character-driven novel with an unforgettable mix of humor, suspense, and emotional depth.

No one has ever gotten close enough to discover the secrets of Corbin White's troubling past. Not until he finds a group of other teens hiding supernatural abilities. They teach him how to see and manipulate the Rudin, the uncharted world of unseen energy, and how to fend off the terrifying beings that live there.

But they don't have the answers he's seeking. What they do have, is a deadly secret of their own.

Now Corbin must confront the living nightmares of his past, survive the betrayal of the friends he trusted, and face his role in the earth-shattering events of the future.

Any hero can save the world but Corbin is the only one destined to destroy it.

From the Nightly Shore, is the first book in the White Raven Chronicles, a gripping paranormal series that may do more than keep you up at night; you may never see the world the same way again.

 

 

 

Anyway, on one side, it’s a contemporary story as Corbin deals with the daily battles of living up to his father’s expectations and his struggles to make and keep friends. But on the other side, it’s this darker, paranormal story where he and his friends must hide their supernatural powers and survive attacks from the shadowy beings no one else can see. But there’s no wise mentor or secret organization to train them. All they have is each other and their own experience. So, at the story’s core, you have this sixteen-year-old boy who finally opens himself up to making friends only to have them betray him. Then, when he discovers he’s the only one who can save them from what’s coming, it would surprise you what he chooses to do about it.

 

So if anyone one is interested in checking it out, I appreciate any comments or support (like reviews on amazon if you read it). Again, I would love to get some feedback from the community.  I'm halfway through book 2 in the series and I'm hoping to finish the draft by August and publish later this year, so if anyone likes the first book, I'll be looking for beta readers for book two.

 

 

Category: Fiction (YA supernatural/contemporary)
Source: Charles Buechele
Title: From the Nightly Shore 
Date: May 16, 2021

 

[Shadowsofstars]

I'm definitely interested. As an aspiring author, it's really cool to see other people succeed, even if it does make me feel a bit inadequate. One thing to remember about representation is that it's never going to be perfectly representative of everyone's experience, just because one asexual didn't feel represented doesn't mean none of them ever will.  Either way, congratulations from one writer to another. 

[TormentDubz]

Pretty cool buddy. I'll order it in a couple weeks

[verily-forsooth-egads]

Man, I really might check it out. The amount of books I read is shamefully limited these days, but this sounds like it's right out of my subconscious.

[Ennis]

First few pages definitely got me hooked.

Does Corbin end up calling himself asexual or is it just implied throughout?

[everywhere and nowhere]

American literature-age terminology is absurd.

Teenagers are subadults.

The phrase "young adult" should mean ages around 18-25. Using it as an abbrevation for "younger than adult" makes no sense.

I'll stick to the Polish-German calque "youth literature" to mean what Americans call "young adult".

[Acebdolon]

Thanks for checking it out. I know we all have our own experiences, and the book is more reflective of my own. I've studied YA lite for about 14 years and seeing male asexual viewpoint characters is rare/nonexistent. 

 

9 hours ago, Nowhere Girl said:

American literature-age terminology is absurd.

Nowhere Girl, I completely agree. But in defense of writers, we have little control over the terms publishers use for marketing books. Its all about labeling and marketing. Its the same with genre labels. Publishers will push books into certain genres or age categories that are selling better. From a writer's standpoint things like age category and genre are content based and definite, but they're completely fluid for publishers. Like how the trends went from supernatural to paranormal to fantasy, even though there are books they marketed as all three at different points. Or how some publishers pulled some adult books and marked them as YA when the YA market started growing. Or how Harry Potter is marketed as children's literature when most of the books are when he's a teen. I could go on, but yes, it is absurd, especially to authors, or at lest me and a few other authors I know.

 

9 hours ago, Ennis said:

Does Corbin end up calling himself asexual or is it just implied throughout?

Ennis, He doesn't use the word asexual in book one, although he probably will in book two, but by the end of book one he does explicitly say he's not interested in anything physical.